Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-06-14
A PLEA FOR BHAKe-BEAMERs,
And Evidently From a Member of that
Numerous Fraternity.

And Evidently From Member of that
Numerous Fraternity.
EDS. RECORD UNION: A large number of
California workingmen necessarily travel
about the State during a portion of the
year, for while they are able to find plenty
of employment at times. at others they are
left entirely destitute of a job Then it is
that they commence to roam, generally
upon the beams, and the same men who
one month before were elevating bricks for
building or working fourteen hours day
in the harvest field are found travelling
through this and adjoining States and Ter
ritories.
Why is it that the workingman of Cali
fornia is given to travelling, or to use the
harsh phrase, tramping, when his confreres
in the Eastern States do not do so? might
be asked by Eastern people with some show
of reason.
The answer is simply that workingmen
in California are often treated too much
like dogs For example: After long
days work he is generally told that be can
sleep anywhere he wishes upon the ranch
This generally amounts to his sleeping or
freezing in the hay until morning, when
he is expected to turn out and get through
good days work. Such treatment of
workingmen as this is not likely to greatly
increase their desire for employment in the
future.
Again, work is only plentiful in Califor-
MIA during the summer months, vet this
trouble might, to some extent, be remedied
by careful distribution of the labor over
the different seasons of the year.
When, as often happens, ''bumn is
killed riding upon brake-beam, it seldom
excites much comment, because he was
only tramp" Yet if the matter were to
be more fully Investigated, it would be
often found that the crew of the train
caused his death by calling upon him -" to
come off on the fly" or throwing rocks, or
| that more dangerous missile the coupling
pin, at him. Yet when do we hear of a
brakeman being hung or even punished for
these murders?
The incentive for these crimes is gener-
| ally the mpecuniousness of their victims,
who are unable to answer satisfactorily the
| question. Have You got any stuff"
Alter helping to pick up a few dead part
| nerS, the average brake-rider sees his fate
clearly depicted before his eyes in fact,
| he can never forget il, night or day, while
the very wheels seem to echo it in the
words, Meet your DOOM" Then heprob-
| ably grows reckless, and tries everything in
his attempt to leave the road, but generally
Heets with out temporary success.
We often hear it argued that they should
| never have fallen low enough to have to
tramp around the country; but let these
| parties, who are willing to Judge Others
| themselves get out, or nearly out, of money
| whilst away from their friends. and they
will find that kicks down hill are very nu-
merous.
There is one class of persons who fully
| deserve their fate. Irefer TO a low, depraved
| class of wretches who often frequent the
road" and who generally come from
| and are the scum of the large cities, where
they are usually raised and graduated into
warrantable worthlessness. But a large
percentage of the "men on the road" are
there through bad luck and bad treatment.
To such let the people of California lend
| helping hand and when they hire them to
work, treat them as ordinary citizens, and
not as criminals. ARIZONA TRAVELLER
May %, 1887.